Tsang also says in the same strain. "Proceeding eastwards he invaded the states which had refused allegiance, and waged incessant warfare, until in six years he had fought the Five Indias (according to the other reading 'had brought the Five Indias under allegiance'). Then having enlarged his territory he increased his army and reigned in peace for thirty years without raising a weapon." On general grounds there is no greater reason to look upon these statements of Hiuen Tsang as literally true or even more reliable than the pompous phrases of Baņa. Besides, the absurdity of the claim that Harşavardhana brough the Five Indias under allegiance may be convincingly demonstrated; for it is unanimously held that the whole of India south of the Vindhyas, as well as Kāmrūpa, Kāśmīr, Punjāb, Sind and Rajputana were never included within Harga's dominions. Hiuen Tsang's statement that Harsa was the lord of the whole of India cannot serve as a basis of history any more than the phraseology of Bana. If any historian is prepared to believe, on the basis of these stock phrases, that Harṣavardhana was the lord of India, or even of north India,-for which, however, there is no authority,then it is difficult to deny an equal position of supremacy to his rival Sasanka on the basis of the following phrase occurring in an inscription of 619 A.D. "While the Mahārājādhirāja the glorious Sasankarāja was ruling over the earth surrounded by the girdle of the waves of the water of four oceans together with islands, mountains and cities." It is further to be observed that Hiuen Tsang usually remarks, with reference to dependent states, that they are subordinate to such and such a suzerain power. Thus he notes that Lan-P'O (Lampa), Na-kie-lo-ho (Nagara), Gandhara and Fa-la-na were subject to Kapisa; Simhapura, Wu-la-shih, Pau-nu-Ts'o, Rāja 84 Watters "On Yuan Chwang, Vol. I., p. 343; Beal's translation of this passage is defective. Similar generalities also occur elsewhere in Hiuen Tsang's accounts. Thus speaking of Mahārāṣṭra he says: "At the present time Śilāditya Mahārāja has conquered the nations from east to west and carried his arms to remote districts, but the people of this country alone have not submitted to him" (Beal's translation, Vol. II., pp. 256-57). 85 Ep. Ind., Vol. VI., p. 146. pura, and Takṣasila were dependencies of Kasmir; while Mou-losan-pu-lu and Po-fa-to were subject to Cheh-ka. With reference to Takṣasila he even goes so far as to note that "the country had formerly been subject to Kapis but now it was a dependency of Kāśmir." His statement about some other feudatory states have already been referred to above. In view of all these it is not a little strange that Hiuen Tsang does not specifically refer to any state as dependent upon the kingdom of Harṣa. He, no doubt, calls Harsa the lord of Five Indias, i.e. whole of India, but the looseness of such expression becomes quite apparent when we remember that he himself has referred to a number of Indian states as independent. On the whole, a perusal of Hiuen Tsing's accounts, without any prepossessions, only leads to the conclusion that, so far at least as these accounts are concerned, Harṣavardhana was merely the king of Kanauj. Curiously enough Ettinghausen in a way clearly admits this when he says "Pour lui, par exemple, Harsa est spécialement roi de Thanesar et non roi de l'Inde septentrionale." (As for him, i.e. Hiuen Tsang, for instance, Harsa is particularly king of Thanesar and not the king of northern India) Thanesar here is evidently a slip for Kanauj for Hiuen Tsang describes Harşavardhana as ruler of Kanauj and not of Thanesar; but with this correction, Ettinghausen's conclusion is the only one at which a dispassionate man can arrive on a perusal of Hiuen Tsang's accounts. There seems to be a great deal of truth in Hiuen Tsang's statement, quoted above, that Harsa was engaged in a protracted military campaign; for this is borne out by other evidences. As we have already referred to above, Hiuen Tsang incidentally refers to his campaign against Kongoda towards the close of his reign, and to his temporary residence at Kajangala on his return from that expedition. This is easily explained when we remember that these were precisely the territories over which his enemy Sasanka ruled, and, as Banabhatta expressly says, Harsa undertook a war of vengeance against him. Similarly the course of campaign which ultimately Op. Cit., p. 38, 36 brought him into conflict with the Calukya and Valabhi kingdoms was almost certainly caused by his hereditary enmity with the Malava king. We read in the Aihole Inscription, that "subdued by his (i.e. Phulakeji's splendour, the Laṭas, Mālavas and Gurjaras, became, as it were, teachers of how feudatories, subdued by force, ought to behave." 37 As Dr. Kielhorn, the editor of the inscription, points out, the passage means "that the Latas, Mālavas and Gurjaras, being impressed by the majesty and power of Pulakesi had voluntarily submitted to him or sought his protection." We learn from Harṣa-Carita that the Laṭas, Mālavas and Gurjaras were enemies of Prabhakaravardhana; that the king of Malava killed Grahavarman, imprisoned Rajyajrī and even intended to attack Thanesar immediately after the death of Prabhakaravardhana; and that it was in course of his campaign against the Malava king that Rajyavardhana was killed by Sasanka. 38 It seems therefore very probable that in his attempt to chastise the king of Malava, Harşavardhana found himself confronted by a hostile confederacy of powers in and round the Gujarat peninsula. Harşa probably scored some successes at first, for, as referred to above, the king of Valabhi had to seek the protection of the Gurjara king of Boroach against him. But the confederacy soon secured the alliance of the great Calukya king Pulakesi II and Harşa's discomfiture was complete. Thus Harsa's campaigns in the east and south-west were acts of necessity forced upon him by circumstances which prevailed at the time of his accession. The small state of Thanesar was almost encircled by hosts of enemies at the time when Harṣa's father died. Besides the states mentioned above which pressed him from east and south, and which almost threatened the very existence of Thanesar as an independent state, Harṣa had probably to reckon with the Hupas in the north and the kingdom of Gandhara on the west. 39 For Prabhakaravar 87 Ep. Ind., Vol. VI., p. 10 and footnote (5). dhana was at war with them and at the very moment of his death his elder son was fighting against the Hūnas.40 The small state of Thanesar was thus passing through a grave crisis when Harsa ascended the throne and it reflects no small credit upon the youthful emperor that he bravely faced the perils and almost singlehanded-for, so far as we know, the king of Kāmarūpa was his only ally-fought with the greatest potentates of India. His military genius not only saved his kingdom from impending ruin but also enlarged its extent, and this sufficiently explains the reputation of his valour to which Hiuen Tsang bears eloquent testimony. Read in the above light the following statement of Hiuen Tsang already quoted above with a variant reading, will not appear wide of the mark: "Proceeding eastwards he invaded the states which had refused allegiance, and waged incessant warfare until he had fought the Five Indias. Then having enlarged his territory he increased his army and reigned for thirty years without raising a weapon." Harṣavardhana no doubt increased his territory but it is difficult to determine the exact boundaries of his kingdom. We know from Harṣa-Carita that his ancestral kingdom comprised the Thanesar district and its neighbourhood, including the valley of the Saraswati river. The accounts of Hiuen Tsang leave no doubt that he ruled over Kanauj. The Banskhera plate 1 and Madhuban copperplate 2 record grants of land respectively in the Ahichhatra and Śrāvasti Bhuktis, The way in which Hiuen Tsang describes the ceremonies at Prayaga seems to show that it was within the dominions of Harṣa. Thus his territory comprised the districts roughly corresponding to the present United Provinces of Agra and Oudh with a small proportion of the eastern Punjab. The coins attributed to him and to his father were also found within this area. 40 Cowell's Harşa, p. 132. So far, we are on tolerably certain grounds. But it is probable that Harṣa also ruled over Magadha, for the Chinese documents connected with his embassy to that country seem to style him "king of Magadha". 4 According to this view Harṣa's dominions were bounded by the Himalayas, the western Punjab, Rājputānā, Central India and Bengal. 43 This conclusion seems also to follow from Hiuen Tsang's accounts. The pilgrim first of all describes the three kingdoms of Kapisa, Kāśmir and Cheh-ka (Punjab) each of which extended its sway over minor countries in the neighbourhood. But he states nothing about the status, or even refers to the sovereigns, of any state from Chi-na-p'uh-ti to Magadha with the exception of Kanauj, P'o-li-ye-ta-lo, Mo-ti-pu-lo, the kingdom of the women, Kapilavastu and Nepal, the second, fourth, fifth and sixth of these kingdoms being just outside the boundary we have indicated above. If we construe the silence of Hiuen Tsang regarding the rest as an indication that these states were under the kingdom of Kanauj, the area indicated would closely correspond with the deductions made above regarding the extent of Harsa's kingdom, with the sole exception of Mo-ti-pu-lo which lay in its north-western extremity. This view is strengthened by the fact that while Hiuen Tsang is thus silent regarding the status of states within the area indicated, he refers to the sovereigns of all the countries that surrounded it, viz., Cheh-ka in the west, Ku-cha-lo in the south-west, P'o-li-ye-ta-lo, Mo-hi-shi-fa-lo-pu-lo (Mahesvarapura ?), Chihchi-to (Bundelkhand) and Maha-Kosala in the south, I-lan-napo-fa-to in the east, Nepāla in the north-east and Kapilavastu and the kingdom of women in the north. Thus Hiuen Tsang's testimony, both in its positive and negative aspects, harmonises with the epigraphic and literary evidence and Harṣavardhana's kingdom (may be approximately defined as consisting of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, together with Bihar and a portion of the East Punjab, with the exclusion 43 Watters "On Yuan Chwang ", Vol. I., p. 351. Cf. eg. the map of India at the end of Watters, Vol. II. |